


Baby We Can Be Magic

by ChaoticNachoKitten



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race (US) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Character Death, Conversations, Developing Relationship, F/F, Fire, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Rituals, Songfic, Soul Bond, Temporary Character Death, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:49:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticNachoKitten/pseuds/ChaoticNachoKitten
Summary: A burned down haunted house from the 1930s that had been fascinating her since childhood. Max, the ghost haunting the place, wants nothing more than to be human again. Jinkx, a girl who loves anything supernatural, is completely drawn to the house and determined to help. What could possibly go wrong? (Spoiler alert: maybe not even that much)This is a songfic about the song 'Outlaws' and my contribution to a-tresia's fic exchange❤
Relationships: Max Malanaphy/Jinkx Monsoon, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Baby We Can Be Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aqpuppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aqpuppy/gifts).



> My match for the fic exchange was the lovely aqpuppy. Although this turned out to be less of a songfic than I had intended it, I hope you'll still be okay with it.❤
> 
> Thank you to PuddlemereUnited for betaing and being able to deal with my constant whining.❤

Apparently many people had the perception that the years they had spent at school were some of the most beautiful ones they would ever have in their entire life. Well, maybe they were if those people happened to be the lucky ones that were popular at school. Now, Jinkx wasn't an aggressive person by any means, quite the contrary, usually she was one of the most friendly and laid-back people you'd ever meet, but if another person was going to tell her that she was going to miss school once she graduated, she would kill them.

Now, one should think that people would mature over the years, but it turned out that wasn't always the case. Ever since she was young, Jinkx had been that one kid everyone liked to pick on for absolutely no reason other than expressing their own insecurities that way. Jinkx was a fairly easy target because she had some unique interests. So, as a consequence she had to deal with years of nasty comments about her entire being. They seemed to just hate everything about her. Her outfits, hair, makeup, the way she talked and behaved, sexuality, hell, even the sound of her voice despite secretly being a great singer.

Even now, during her last year at school, people were still awful. Over time though, Jinkx had learned how to simply ignore the neverending hurtful comments and just go on about her day. Having absolutely no one to talk to during the breaks combined with being introverted had its upsides after all. It meant that she could read during the breaks without being interrupted, which, being bothered while she was trying to read something was one of her biggest pet peeves. Now, one of the reasons people made fun of her was because Jinkx's biggest interest was everything supernatural, but especially rituals. There were so many of them, each of them completely unique and incredibly fascinating. She could probably go on for a few hours straight about why she loved them that much and which of them were her favorites.

Of course, there was a reason for that slightly unusual interest though. There was this feeling she experienced sometimes. It had been like that for as long as she could think back. It could happen anywhere, but most of the time she felt it whenever she was near a cemetery or an old building. It sometimes felt like someone was there, even though that wasn't the case. Or, well, that wasn't exactly the truth. If she stayed at the location long enough, there sometimes would come a name or a face to her mind that she had never heard of or seen prior to coming to that place. And whenever she decided to look up the name or do research about the name, it always turned out to be someone who had died there or close to wherever she had felt the presence. 

Now, she didn't want to call herself a witch, or even claim that she was special, but she knew that she wanted to use whatever she had in the best way she could.

As weird as it sounded though since she was so obsessed with it, Jinkx had be reluctant to try out any kind of ritual to communicate with those deceased people though, she didn't want to do anything wrong after all, some of the rituals actually had the potential to ruin her life forever if anything was done incorrectly, and on top of that she already had confirmation that there were ghosts or spirits, or whatever you wanted to call them were around her. Most rituals focused on finding out if there were any ghosts around in the first place, and she already had confirmation of that. 

For the time being she decided the best thing was continuing to do more research until she was 100% confident in what she was doing before performing anything potentially dangerous. As much as she loved anything supernatural, she didn't want to experience anything negative because of it.  
Little did she know that attitude was about to change really soon.

Ironically, the beginning of that changing attitude started at school, the one place trying to force all of the students into a mold, trying to eliminate all of the creativity and uniqueness of each individual. Uncommon interests were something that just was neither wanted nor appreciated.

It all began with an assignment, a presentation to 'prepare' everyone for when they'd have to do it in university later on. And those presentations were the least favorite part of school, not that she liked any part of school a lot. But being forced to talk in front of her whole class, the people who neither cared about any topic, really, nor liked her whatsoever for that matter, was basically mental torture to her. On top of that, the time they were given for preparing everything wasn't a lot at all. And working under pressure was the absolute worst. Therefore Jinkx didn't look forward to that whole thing at all. 

That was until she realized that 'big cities' was a possible topic. This made her remember something. She used to live in the closest bigger city throughout part of her childhood, a couple of hours away from where she lived now. Since she had moved places a lot throughout the years, she had completely forgotten about it. Well, at least until now. Back when she lived there, there was something that used to fascinate her when she was younger. A burned down house. Of course, no one except her seemed to particularly care about it, but she remembered being completely drawn to the house whenever she looked at it, raising the desire in her to enter it. Obviously though, that would have been extremely dangerous as it had looked like it could collapse any second as soon as someone attempted to open the door. 

Needless to say, after her parents noticed it, they always made sure to keep her away from it as best they could. Therefore she had never found out why exactly she used to be that enchanted about. The house was nothing special to everyone else after all. Weirdly enough, it turned out that, for once, she was actually excited about doing school work. It gave her an excuse to visit the city again on her own, which meant that the huge question of her childhood would potentially finally get answered. 

After picking a date to go on the trip to the city, she decided she should probably do some research about it first, just to find out if it was still there. Maybe she would even manage to find out what had caused the fire.

A couple of hours later, Jinkx wasn't quite satisfied with what she had found out. It just wasn't a whole lot unfortunately. The only thing she had been able to find out was that it had burned down in the 1930s, no specific year or even date was mentioned anywhere, apparently no newspapers wrote about it, it was as if the incident had never even happened.

Next, apparently people died in the fire, but once again, there was absolutely no further information, not even the appropriate number of people. It almost seemed as if someone was trying to erase the event to the best of their abilities. Surely it was a lot less deep than that though. Maybe no one except her cared enough about a fire that had happened several decades ago to publish something about it on the internet. Another reason to check it out for herself and find out what was that special about it.

Around a week later, maybe two, after intensely rereading everything about haunted places and rituals to detect spirits and communicate with them, she felt like she was ready to actually go visit the house. The research had taken more than a week, because finding rituals without any use of fire hadn't been easy in the slightest. However, she was serious about the whole thing. If the house was actually being haunted by the ghosts of the people who died in the fire, lighting up candles was probably not the best idea and would just scare them off or anger them in the worst case scenario, and then they probably wouldn't want to communicate with her. Not to mention that using fire in a house that could collapse at any given time would just be a really bad idea. 

Jinkx couldn't wait for school to end for the day. Not that that usually wasn't the case, but today was a special day. The day she would finally put her plans into action. So when the school bell finally rang, signaling that the school day was over, she had to use every single bit of her self control in order not to just run out of the building as soon as she could. Not that she cared about the opinions of everyone around her anymore, but she would have felt a little bit ridiculous herself.

The train ride to get into the city was pretty uneventful. Of course, some people stared at her like they always did, for seemingly no reason. Maybe it was something about her aura that made people look at her and realize that she was different from them in an unexplainable sense. Whatever it was, Jinkx was used to it and could easily ignore the odd glances. She still found it highly annoying though and couldn't wait for the train to arrive at the station she had to get out. To pass time, she recollected everything she had read about the house and the rituals earlier. She would have gotten out her book again as well, but she didn't want to attract anymore attention because of an odd looking book. Her phone would just have to do for the duration of the ride.

Remembering the general location of the house was surprisingly easy although Jinkx hadn't been in that city for years, simply because even though it was fairly big, there really wasn't a lot to do in it. Not unlike in her childhood though, she felt like someone was guiding her into a specific direction, and she decided to just follow that feeling, not paying much attention to her surroundings so she wouldn’t get distracted. 

She walked like that for a while, long enough to make her question if maybe she was just imagining things and in reality she was just wandering around in circles, maybe that old house had been demolished a long time ago already. In that case, the whole trip would have been completely unnecessary. To avoid wasting any more time, she grabbed her phone to set a timer for 10 minutes. 

Before she even unlocked her phone though, she quickly looked around to make sure that she wouldn't bump into anyone while setting the timer. And that's when she saw it. In a distance, she was able to make out the familiar sight of her old house. That meant that the house she was actually looking for would be right next to it. Well, in case it was still there. There was a good chance that it wouldn't be there anymore. And yet Jinkx could almost feel its presence, as weird as it sounded.

No more than two minutes of walking as quickly as she could, she was standing in front of the house. It was in a slightly better state than she had remembered it, surprisingly. It even looked as if someone had tried to renovate it for whatever reason and then given up on their pointless attempt. Who would even try something like that in the first place?

Entering it felt intimidating though, as much as she wanted to go inside. She could feel some doubt about the whole thing creeping up. What if the spirit haunting this place would be one of the aggressive sort? Those ones could end up giving whoever dared to enter their territory nightmares and a constant feeling of being followed throughout the day for the rest of their life.

Rationally, satisfying her curiosity obviously was not worth risking her health, but something about that place made her unable to think straight. She just had to go in there, just once, to find out what the deal of this whole place and her feelings about it were. Of course she still was aware of the potential dangers, but for some reason she just couldn't bring herself to care enough about it.

The front door or honestly whatever was left of it, creaked loudly as she tried to pull it open. The sound alone was creepy enough to send shivers down her spine. Nevertheless, there was no going back now. The door finally gave in, allowing Jinkx to enter the building.

It was dark and cold on the inside, even with the daylight seeping into the room through the windows. But before she could even turn on the flashlight on her phone to be able to actually see what was going on, she could hear someone whispering to her. 

It was a bit too quiet to properly make out any of the words at first. Something about it was odd, too. It neither sounded like the voice was in her head nor did it sound like someone was whispering into her ear. If anything, the closest thing to describe it was an odd mix of those two. The whispering also was too quiet to even try and guess what the person behind the whispering used to look like.

She tried closing her eyes and breathed as quietly as possible to make out what the ghostly voice was trying to tell her.

"I think I can actually feel your curiosity. Do you want to see what happened to this house?"

Jinkx wasn't sure how to respond. How would that even be possible? Receiving an explanation about what had happened made sense, but how would they be able to actually show her? Of course, there was also a possibility of the person talking to her having a language barrier, making it difficult for them to explain but it had sounded as if they were a Native. She decided she needed to find out, not only what had happened but also how she would be able to see for herself.

"Yes, I would appreciate that. Please show me."

As soon as she had spoken those words as clearly as she could, she felt like the room was spinning all of the sudden, making her too dizzy to keep her eyes open. But even with them being closed, the spinning feeling didn't stop. In fact, it kept on getting faster and faster, quickly hitting its peak before stopping abruptly.

Jinkx slowly dared opening her eyes again. Immediately after doing so though, she was shocked. She found herself in what seemed to be the same house as before, she wasn't quite sure however, as she hadn't been able to see the actual inside of it earlier. This time, the whole place was illuminated by a huge, pretty vintage looking chandelier. Looking around, everything she could see from the ceiling down to the furniture and floor had the same kind of vintage look to it, all of it seemed to be from the same decade. Now, Jinkx was sure that the ghost had brought her back to the past, presumably the exact date that they had died. After realizing this, she felt dizzy again for a brief second. 

She wasn't alone anymore. The room was now filled with energy and happiness. In fact, she seemed to be in the middle of a party, or at least something similar to it. The furniture had been pushed to the sides to make room for the guests, so it was repurposed by them as seats. She could even hear music playing somewhere in the background, way too quietly for a party though, especially with that many people talking over it. It didn't make much sense having music at all that way. 

Looking around for a minute, she realized that all the guests were females, no males in sight. Most of those girls or young women, she couldn't quite tell how old they were exactly, stood around socializing in pairs. Even as a person who didn't know anything about them, Jinkx felt like even though they weren't partying all together as a large group, they still were one close community. After a few more moments of looking at the girls, she finally understood why. Most of them, if not all, were couples. At least, that was what it looked like, as some of the girls were just openly kissing or even going further than that, while others behaved a bit more subtle and kept it at holding hands, hugging, and occasional cheek kisses. There was one particular, more calm couple that captured Jinkx's attention. She wasn't sure what exactly made her want to find out more about them though, but she didn't question it. They were sitting on a couch, just casually holding hands and talking to each other, but something about them was special, and she was determined to find out what it was.

Although she was pretty much convinced that she had just been invited to someone's else's memory and therefore was just a mere observer of what was going on, she wanted to make sure of it. After trying to talk to, and actually tapping on multiple people's shoulders and not a single person reacting to any of it, she knew that she didn't have to worry about accidentally interrupting anyone anymore. That also meant she could walk up to the mysterious couple in order to take a closer look at them without being seen.

They seemed to be in a deeper kind of conversation, one of them looked extremely worried, while the other one was trying to calm her down.

"Come on Fame, I promise you have nothing to worry about. I know this is your first time attending this kind of social gathering, but still, I know everything will be just fine. I've been to a lot of them already, and nothing bad has ever happened to me before. We're completely safe in here." The girl spoke in such a relaxed voice it almost sounded sleepy.

The other girl didn't look convinced and kept looking around nervously.  
"I know Pearl, but I just can't shake that weird feeling," she replied in a voice that sounded just as nervous as the poor girl probably was.

The girl that had spoken first, 'Pearl,' was about to respond when another girl joined the conversation. She had rather long blonde hair, and a knowing friendly smile on her lips.

"First time?" she asked, looking directly at Fame as she did. The latter quickly nodded, and then blushed and looked away, probably embarrassed that she had managed to grab a stranger's attention with her concerns. The blonde however didn't leave, instead she kept talking to Fame.  
"Really, as your girlfriend already said, there's nothing that could possibly go wrong. We're careful, that's why those parties are hosted in a different place every time. So just lean back and relax, otherwise you won't be able to enjoy this new experience."  
She focused her attention towards Pearl.  
"Maybe you should take her upstairs for a couple of minutes, just until she has calmed down a bit, there's a small empty room you could go into for a while. I've been in there with a few people already." The blonde girl smirked.  
Pearl immediately nodded, and thanked the girl before taking Fame's hand and leading her through the crowd.  
Jinkx didn't follow the couple immediately this time, she had to think about something first. The way everyone treated each other at this party was absolutely beautiful. It seemed as if the girls were just looking out for each other, and didn't shy away from helping and offering advice if needed, even to complete strangers. She didn't want to imagine that this was the day this house would burn down. And even if it was, and despite knowing that people probably died in that fire, she didn't even want to imagine any of those lovely strangers getting hurt.  
Nevertheless, she had to find out what had happened, that's why she had been offered this opportunity after all.  
Jinkx decided to stick with following around Fame and Pearl even though she already knew that neither of them was the ghost who was sharing their memories with her right now. She would have felt it if they were. The one she was actually looking for was somewhere in this house, she just needed to find them.  
As soon as Fame and Pearl had reached the room upstairs, Fame immediately started relaxing a bit as she probably felt safer in this rather small and dark room, the doorbell started ringing.  
Somehow Jinkx remembered that she had once read that electrical doorbells hadn't been invented until 1931, so it was clear evidence that now it either was either that year or later.  
The ringing doorbell had managed to pique her curiosity, she wanted to know who had rung it, so she decided to leave the couple alone for a bit in order to check it out.  
Before she could even take the first step of the stairs though, she already heard someone yell that they're going to let in the person outside.  
Then, halfway down the stairs, she could hear a piercing scream. It was unlike any other she had ever heard before, full of fear and panic. Whatever the person had just experienced was, without a doubt, something that would probably haunt them forever.  
Jinkx still wanted to find out what was going on, so she kept walking all the way downstairs.  
When she was about to look for whoever had screamed though, she could hear a gunshot being fired. This was enough to put her off of that idea. Although she knew that nothing could happen to her as what she was experiencing right now wasn't the actual reality, she didn't think she could stand seeing people be shot. It was simply too cruel.  
A few seconds later, everyone downstairs started panicking. Jinkx could hear them scream, she could make out a few words. A few more shots could be heard. It seemed as if someone was blocking all the doors, windows and anything similar, making them unable to escape. Most of the girls downstairs were in such a state of shock that they couldn't move and were forced to watch the tragedy that was about to happen. A few girls though managed to contain their shock for the time being, so as quickly as they could, they ran upstairs, joining Pearl and Fame in the smallish room. Fame was crying, her fear had come true while Pearl tried to keep everyone in the room quiet and locked the room, hoping it would be enough to protect them.  
Jinkx was only slightly surprised to find out she was able to walk through doors as if they didn't exist.  
Outside of the room, she saw an angry looking man climbing up the stairs, there was an evil spark in his eye. She immediately knew that whatever this man was about to do, it would be lethal to all of the girls who were trapped in the house.  
Once again though, she didn't want to see what exactly was going to happen, so she decided to check out a different room. She just hoped the ghost sharing their memory with her would be okay with Jinkx not wanting to see all of the tragedy. The house had multiple rooms upstairs, but somehow, there only was one she actually wanted to check out.  
She listened to her feelings, and just walked into the room, through the closed wooden door and all. She noted that almost the entire house was made out of wood, which meant that fire would be a very easy way to destroy it quickly.  
The room probably belonged to whoever was hosting the party. It looked really pretty, a black and white theme, mostly grey tones, the furniture was arranged in a way that made everything match. Overall, whoever's room it was, they had a great sense of style.  
There were two girls except her in the room. She was only able to concentrate on one of them though, something about her was special.  
The girl in question had fairly short, dyed grey hair, and she was wearing a pretty grey dress. She completely fit right into her room, aesthetically wise. Unfortunately though, Jinkx couldn't see much of the girl's face as she was bending forward slightly, causing her hair to fall into her face, plus she was covering her eyes with her hands. The quiet sobs indicated that she was crying.  
"I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. I never should have agreed to this." She kept repeating those words like a mantra.  
The other girl looked scared and a little helpless, but tried to calm down the grey haired girl anyway.  
"It's not your fault Max, I promise. We'll be okay."  
So now Jinkx knew that the girl named Max was the one sharing her memory with her.  
Just as the other girl had finished talking, there was a ton of smoke all of the sudden, causing both girls to cough violently. Soon after, before either of them really had time to process or even comprehend what had just happened, or why it had happened in the first place, fire was starting to burn down the room.  
Jinkx could feel the now familiar dizziness again, which probably meant that the memory was almost over. The last things she heard were distant screams from downstairs and the words "This can't be it. It can't be the end. I'm sorry." Max finally removed her hands from her face, giving Jinkx the opportunity to take in her beauty.  
Just a few moments later though, Jinkx was back to reality. Surprisingly, she was actually standing in what had once been Max's room. It was in a sad state, nothing of its once very present beauty was there anymore. It was just an empty room at this point, whatever was left of the walls clearly showed the impact of the fire.  
The reason why she had been able to walk through the doors earlier was because neither of the rooms had any doors anymore.  
She was about to question the safety of being in the second floor of a building that should probably not be entered at all in the first place, when she heard that almost, but not quite whispering again.  
"Well...now you know part of my story…"  
There was a moment of silence as Jinkx thought about how to best answer Max.  
"I do. Thank you for showing me. Is there anything I can do for you?"  
Although she could have just offered to do what she had in mind, she wanted to see if it matched up with Max's wishes first.  
"I could never get over what happened. It was my first time hosting this kind of party. I tried to make it safe and keep everything as private as possible, and yet I failed. I failed everyone, I'm responsible for all of those girls' deaths, the people who trusted me. Those awful guys still managed to find us. Why do people hate us just for loving others? I don't get it, I don't think I ever will. And the short life I had, it can't be it. It can't have been everything. I didn't achieve any of the goals I had set for myself. I wish I had a second chance. I don't know how everyone else accepted what happened, but I just can't. I can't seem to be able to move on."  
"Max, what happened isn't your fault. It's the fault of people who were completely possessed by their hatred of others who don't fit the mold of what is considered to be 'normal.' I think you deserve a second chance too. And I might just be able to help you with that."  
Even though Max was still whispering, Jinkx could still hear her excitement.  
"You can? That would be my biggest wish come true. I promise I'll do anything I can if you're going to help me."  
Jinkx hesitated for a bit.  
"There's just one catch. If we want this whole thing to succeed, there's some preparation for it that will be necessary. I guess there's one thing in particular that will take the longest amount of time. To properly execute that whole thing, we'll have to have an emotional bond, and I don't know if you're comfortable with that."  
"If that's really the only thing, I'm more than willing to do it. If anything, I didn't really get to have that kind of experience with anyone, so it'll be a way for me to make up for it."  
"Alright, if you're sure about it, I guess the easiest way would be meeting up every day from now on? You don't happen to be able to leave this place, do you?"  
Max sighed.  
"I think so too, it would probably be the fastest way as well. And to answer your second question, I don't, which is really frustrating most of the time. But to think that soon I might be able to be free to go wherever I choose to? It already makes me feel something, a feeling I didn't get to experience since the day I died. Happiness. It's such a beautiful emotion, don't you think?"  
Jinkx somehow wished she could see Max daydreaming about the feeling of happiness, it probably would be a rather cute sight.  
"It truly is. I hope you'll get to feel it way more often from now on."

Over the next few weeks, the two of them actually talked every single day. Although it was time consuming for Jinkx to get to the house and back every day, she was more than happy to do it for Max's sake. At the beginning, the questions had been a bit basic and trivial like "What's your favorite color?" (grey) or just any typical question to find out a bit more about a person without making them uncomfortable in any way. And for the time being, those questions fulfilled their job. They removed the awkwardness that always went hand in hand with meeting new people and not really having an idea what to talk about with them. Of course, there was something they technically could always talk about, but a tragic incident would probably not help with creating an emotional bond.  
Other than that, Jinkx also typically tended to avoid any questions regarding Max's life as she wanted to wait until the other one was comfortable enough around her to tell the story voluntarily.  
Soon though, their relationship started to shift. They weren't just casual acquaintances anymore, step by step, they became more intimate.  
The more they talked, the deeper, more emotional and longer their conversations became. Soon it wasn't just asking questions anymore. It was them sharing deeply personal stories and allowing themselves to be vulnerable around each other. Somehow, neither of them ever felt like the other was going to judge them. It was as if they had known each other for years. Their conversations could go on for hours and to them, it always just ended up feeling like mere minutes. Time could pass, and yet they always seemed to be in their shared personal bubble in which time simply didn't exist. It had just lost all its importance and meaning, at least to them. Something seemed to connect them in a way neither of them questioned or talked about, which was unusual because they seemed to be able to talk about everything at this point, matter what the topic was. This time though, it was something completely new, something that could possibly get ruined if they dared talking about it, at least in their minds. And yet both of them were completely aware of its existence and kept wondering if the other felt it too.  
Eventually, Jinkx realized that they were way past the level of emotional bond they needed. They were extremely close at this point, perhaps even a bit too close to pass as really good friends. But surely it was just because both of them could relate a lot to each other. It had been very surprising to say the least, at first, taking into account that they lived in different decades. Still, maybe some things would never change. After what Max had told her, that theory was pretty much fact.  
Just like her, Max had always been the one person people liked to make fun of. And once again, they had absolutely no reason except her being unique. Uniqueness, to Jinkx, was something that should be celebrated instead of trying to erase every aspect of a person that made them stand out. Unfortunately though, that rarely was the case. Really, the things Max used to get heavily criticized for were just normal things. For instance, dyeing her hair grey because she liked the way it looked on her, or her tendency to ramble and go off topic at times. To Jinkx, if anything, that habit made the other girl even more likeable, and from her memory, Max _did _look beautiful with her hair dyed.  
It all got worse for her when someone somehow managed to find out that Max wasn't straight. After that, people actively started bullying and excluding her from everything, and they made sure to tell Max every single day what they thought of people like her. To this day, she had no idea how it happened as she had always kept it a secret. As a consequence, just to feel understood, she started attending those top secret all girls parties. According to the grey haired girl, some of those parties were part of the most beautiful memories she had. To remain secret, they would always get hosted in different places, so as soon as her parents had to leave the city for a business trip that had been scheduled to last one week, Max volunteered to host one of those parties. And again, she had been extremely secretive about it, and made sure no one except the people she wanted to invite knew about it. It hadn't been enough though. Somehow a group of homophobes had been able to track them down, and their only interest in life, it seemed, was to eliminate anything and anyone that didn't agree with their close minded opinions. Countless innocent lives had been taken that night. Thinking about it made Jinkx incredibly furious. She wished there was a way for her to make them suffer as much as they had tortured the girls. She reminded herself once again that thinking about those hateful people wasn't even worth her time. Plus, if she would actually do anything to them, she wasn't really that much better than those people in her opinion. She had an important task, something that was actually worth investing time into. It was offering someone a second chance at life after all. No, that didn't sound right. It wasn't just any person, it was one of the most special and not to mention beautiful individuals she had ever laid eyes upon. And to think that, if everything worked out the way she intended it to, she would get to see Max and be able to listen to her actual voice. Just thinking about that was enough to make her feel all kinds of ways. Maybe, just maybe Max actually meant a bit, or a lot more to her than a friend. Maybe she was starting to develop a crush on the girl. The one thing Jinkx was very sure about was that she would do anything to make the grey haired girl's wish happen, no matter what. If there was someone who deserved it, it was Max.  
When the day of the ritual came, however, Jinkx started to doubt if she was good enough to be successful. Of course, she had practiced the sequence every single day since she had met Max, and everything was set up already, but what if it hadn't been enough? She would crush Max's wishes and dreams, the girl she cared so much about, something she absolutely did not want to happen. This whole thing just had to work out, otherwise she didn't even want to think of the consequences. Mistakes were just not allowed to happen whatsoever.  
"Jinkx. You need to calm down. Please." Max's whispering was probably meant to calm her down, but it did the exact opposite. She immediately felt her heartbeat speed up. Jinkx was not entirely convinced it was just her nervousness that was to blame.  
"I promise I won't get upset if it doesn't work out. If it doesn't, it's probably just not meant to be, you know?" Max continued, hoping that she was being helpful. Despite feeling her own heart flutter whenever she was near the red haired girl or even just thought about her, she didn't have a single clue what effect her words had on Jinkx.  
"How could I not be nervous?" Jinkx asked, she was overwhelmed and sounded desperate.  
"This isn't just reading a book, this is the real deal, and it's so important for you? How can you even stay that calm while I'm freaking out?"  
"Well, you see...I've been here for many years. Before I met you, my existence felt pointless and pretty boring. Now those feelings have left entirely. I can appreciate the sun shining again, I'm able to see the bright side of most things. You're the reason my existence has become this bright and in some ways, even better than the entire life I had as a living human on this earth. You're not just special to me, you're actually magical. The fact that I got to know you, and experience what my life could have been...it's honestly enough for me. I won't ever be able to thank you enough for what you have already given me. No matter the outcome of tonight, please know that you have already done more than enough."  
"Max...I understand what you're saying, but there's no way I'm going to let you just continue living, or well, it's not even living, like this anymore. You've been through so much injustice it breaks my heart. Hell, you've been outlawed just because of your sexuality. It's not your fault you were born in this decade of incomprehension. I promise, nowadays the situation is a bit better and people generally don't mind it anymore. So no matter how much you're trying to tell me you're okay with not experiencing how beautiful life can be when you're surrounded by the right people, I neither am buying nor accepting that statement. You're getting this second chance, no matter what. I don't care what I'll have to do or how long it'll take. You'll be able to leave this house and be free one day."  
Even though it was supposed to be something to look forward to, Max couldn't help but feel a tinge of fear after hearing the word 'free.'  
"You do realize that I've already met the best of those 'right people', right? To be honest Jinkx, I'm afraid that this, our conversations, having this beautiful bond, will just end once everything is over. I know how fond you are of anything supernatural, so you would probably lose interest in me pretty quickly after I'm human again. I don't know if I could handle not being around you anymore after getting to talk to you every single day."  
"You're seriously worried about that? I would never just leave you to your own devices after the ritual, I promise. Of course I love the supernatural, but human or not, you're still the exact same wonderful person. I don't think I can imagine living without our conversations and without spending time with you either. Nothing about this will change, the only thing that will is that we won't be restricted to staying in this sad looking place that probably triggers those awful memories every day. Instead we can go wherever we want to, and do whatever we please. You once told me you miss going hiking in the mountains. After the ritual, this could be the first thing we'll do if you want to."  
"Well, technically I said it would be my ideal first date. So with that being said, I would love to go hiking with you."  
Jinkx started blushing furiously.  
"So, you're saying the first thing we'll do after this ritual is going on a date?"  
"Only if you want to, of course."  
"I would love to." After her statement, Jinkx tried to push those happy emotions aside for now, she secretly didn't want to get too excited about it yet in case it wasn't going to be able to happen, on top of that, she had to focus, and she couldn't think straight whenever she was overly happy and excited about something.  
"Well, in that case, let's get started with the first step to make that date able to happen."  
"I'm ready whenever you are. And really, I know everything will be okay."  
Jinkx tried her best to ignore her nervousness this time as best as she could, reminding herself that she needed to be as calm as possible in order to make the ritual happen.  
"Just let me look at my phone for a second again, just to make sure I remember everything I have to do correctly."  
Quickly, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and searched for the notes she had taken.  
"I know I'm probably not supposed to keep you from searching for whatever you're looking for, but I'm just really curious as I've never seen an object quite like this before. What is it?"  
"It's totally fine, I found it. I keep forgetting that you've never seen some of the common things we have today. And I kind of view them as a matter of course. It's basically a portable, convenient telephone. It can do a bit more than that, but I won't even try to get into all of its functions today, that can wait."  
"It doesn't look like a telephone at all...it's so small, and there's no dial plate, so I don't see how it can be convenient if you can't even dial telephone numbers. I guess we can continue this discussion at some point in the future though. Do you feel ready now?"  
"I think I'm ready. Alright, so unfortunately I'm going to have to light some candles, because it seems like that's the basic thing you have to do no matter the ritual. Don't worry though, I know you're scared of fire, so I have some special ones you won't have to be scared of. Here, look."  
She got out a few LED candles, turned them on, and then touched the top part that vaguely resembled a flame.  
"See? It's not actual fire, it doesn't hurt."  
Max wasn't too convinced, but there was nothing she could do about it anyway if she wanted to be able to leave this place. Jinkx continued talking after she had carefully assembled the candles in the appropriate position, a circle.  
"So, the next part will be kind of boring for you I think. All you have to do is relax and just think about all the positive aspects you had in your life. I will basically close my eyes and try to visualize you as best as I can. Basically what that does is it sort of 'activates' the bond, and that'll help with bringing you back. You may experience some uncomfortable or even painful sensations, which sucks and I'm sorry, but apparently completely normal and commonly happens. I can't really explain how exactly it works. But in its essence, the emotional bond we have in its activated state will help make what I see and imagine come true. This is why you can only do it if you know each other very well. The better you're able to visualize someone, the more likely it is for the ritual to be successful."  
"Good luck," Max replied. She could have questioned things or said so much more, the words were practically burning on her tongue, but she resisted the temptation as she felt like talking too much could disrupt the important process that was about to happen."  
"Thank you." With that, Jinkx tried to calm down as much as she possibly could for the last time before closing her eyes. At first, she had to somewhat force her thoughts to be about Max specifically. Her brain didn't want to cooperate for a while, she thought about everything else and it was extremely hard for her to focus.  
"Calm down," Max repeated, sensing how hard it was for the red haired girl.  
Those words, and letting them repeat in her head a few times, seemed to do the trick, finally allowing Jinkx to think about Max, and Max only.  
She had a fairly hard time visualizing what Max actually looked like, just because she had only been able to look at her face for a couple of seconds, maybe a minute. Obviously, the first thing she thought of was Max's relatively short grey hair. It had been curly at the party, and even though she didn't know if those curls were natural or not, she just assumed they were, and moved on. The next prominent feature of Max's face were her eyebrows. They really complimented her face, light brown colored, straight and high arched, giving her a very unique look. Jinkx had to think a lot harder to remember the grey haired girl's eyes. She had long and full eyelashes, that's what Jinkx knew for sure, but she had trouble remembering the color. She tried recalling the memory of seeing Max as clearly as she could. Then, she remembered thinking that there had been a contrast going on, the straight eyebrows with the almost rebellious, out of the ordinary aesthetic and her eye color resembled innocence. _So they were blue, probably. _  
Another thing she had noticed was that Max had a beauty mark, another very pretty feature in her opinion.  
The last feature she thought of were Max's lips. Their shape was just so perfect and beautiful. The dark red lipstick Max had been wearing at the party had really distinguished them, causing Jinkx to constantly think about them, more specifically what kissing them would be like. At the beginning she had tried fighting those kinds of thoughts, but after a while she had decided to just give up and let them happen.  
Since she now had a pretty clear visual of what Max used to look like on the outside, it was time for the more important part. The reason why the emotional bond had been necessary. Jinkx had to try and think of Max's personality as best as she could. Even after all those weeks of talking to her, it wasn't easy, but the red haired girl was trying her best.  
The first keyword that came to her mind was _sweet. _Max was one of the friendliest people Jinkx had ever met. Whenever she thought something was going on with Jinkx, she always asked her about it in that gentle tone that gave away how much she cared. Empathetic maybe described her well too. Max was intelligent as well. She constantly kept surprising Jinkx with her seemingly endless amount of knowledge about everything, but especially history was something the girl was able to go on about for hours on end. At the beginning, Max had been a bit more on the quiet and reserved side, but that had changed as they had gotten to know each other and become closer. Nowadays, Jinkx sometimes only had to mention a word, and that was enough for Max to talk about something related to it for at least several minutes. Jinkx never minded this though, if anything, learning more about Max's options and wording, was a great thing. It had made her aware of the fact that Max typically used high class English. She had probably been raised in good means, at least money wise. Either way, it just added to her unique charm and highlighted how smart she was.  
There was something else about her that Jinkx deeply admired. She was still able to keep a pretty positive mindset , even after decades of being forced to stay in the same place. Most ghosts would turn into viscous spirits after just a couple of years at most, but not Max. She had never given up on hoping that one day someone would be able to get her out of this state, as unlikely as it seemed. Jinkx was grateful she had decided to check out this house. She just hoped this whole ritual would be successful.  
As if on cue, she felt something in her thoughts change slowly. It was as if all of the things she had thought about Max earlier were being pulled from her mind. She couldn't grasp onto them, they just slowly faded away and she couldn't do anything about it. Because of that, she decided she could open her eyes again. There was no point in trying anymore. She was reluctant to actually open her eyes, however, she was scared of the ritual having failed. She didn't even want to imagine the way it would be like for Max. She had been so optimistic about it. There was nothing left for Jinkx to do anymore though, all she could do was hope for the best.  
Slowly she opened her eyes again, and averted her gaze to ground, already coming up with an apology for her failed attempt. There was absolutely nothing she could do or say that would make the situation okay though.  
She almost didn't dare looking up, but forced herself to do so anyway. It's not like she could actually avoid finding out, and delaying finding out the truth was just kind of pointless.  
She finally looked up. Max was indeed standing in front of her, she was surrounded by the candles from earlier. Jinkx couldn't believe it. This was probably the best moment of her life. She had managed to grant Max a second chance at life.  
The happy, excited feeling from earlier came back rushing, it was a lot more intense and overwhelming than before, and this time she allowed herself to feel it. The whole situation felt so incredibly surreal, so she wanted to make sure, she wasn't just dreaming. Even after pinching herself, nothing had changed.  
"Max? Are you actually standing in front of me?"  
Max smiled and reached out for Jinkx.  
"Well, do you want to find out?"  
Jinkx couldn't believe she actually got to listen to Max's voice for the first time, excluding the memory. It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard, neither too high nor too low. Her talking speed was perfect, as well as the way she talked. It sounded precious in a way.  
Wordlessly, the red haired girl grabbed Max's hand. She still couldn't believe it. She was actually touching someone who was back to being a physical being after having been a ghost for so long. And if it was that hard to believe for her, she couldn't even imagine how Max was feeling. The latter seemed more and more excited by the second.  
"Jinkx...is this a dream? Am I just going to wake up and realize none of this is real?"  
Jinkx thought for a moment, then got out her phone again and clicked on a random Google page.  
"Well, let's find out. Apparently, you can't read while dreaming, so just try reading the text, okay?"  
She carefully handed Max the phone. The grey haired girl was still completely fascinated by it. Nevertheless, she did as she was told.  
"I can actually read it. It's not a dream! I can even see myself in that object...phone, right?"  
Jinkx opened the camera of her phone.  
"Look, you can see yourself even better now."  
"It's been so long since I've been able to do that, see myself...I won't ever be able to thank you enough for making my biggest wish come true. I'll forever be grateful."  
"Honestly, I think just you actually being here now is enough for me." Jinkx meant her words, there was nothing better she could imagine.  
"I think I want to go outside. Can we please go outside?"  
"Of course we can. And remember, you don't have to ask me, you're free now."  
Max and Jinkx held hands while walking out the door. Max couldn't seem to believe that she was actually able to experience it. And yet, she still cared more about the person next to her than she did about her surroundings.  
"Maybe hiking isn't the first thing I want to do. I think I want to do something I've always wanted to do, something that's extremely risky. Unfortunately I never had the chance to do it."  
Jinkx was slightly confused.  
"What do you mean?"  
A second later, Max's lips were on hers. The kiss was a long and slow one. Perhaps that was Max's intention, maybe she wanted people to see them. And Jinkx was more than okay with that. Kissing the other girl felt unlike anyone else she had kissed before, it was so much better. Everything about it felt right, and she wished it could last forever. She already started missing the sensation when they broke apart. Max was the first one to speak.  
"This was…beyond anything I imagined. It was actual magic, I'm convinced, there's no way people do it all the time and yet they're able to live their everyday lives like it's not a big deal."  
"Nothing has changed about it. I will never get it either."  
"Can we do it again? But I want to be somewhere else, I don't think I can stand being near this house any longer. And I don't think I ever want to see it again."  
"I promise you won't have to. And about your question, of course we can, I would love to do it. Do you have any preferences for a location?"  
"Somewhere far away. I would like to feel as if I'm standing on top of the world, not having to care about anything. Well, except you, of course. Maybe even watch the beautiful sunset in all of its glory."  
"So, the mountains?"  
"Please?"  
Jinkx smiled.  
"Of course we can do that. From now on, you won't ever have to care about other people's opinions, I promise you that. We may both be outlaws in some way, but that's okay. We don't need to listen to others. We can live by our own rules." _Baby we can be magic __Pack your bags because we leave tonight __I've got something to show you __Wrap your arms 'round my waist so tight _______________


End file.
